Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the most-viewed music video from the 1970s.
LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 08: (L-R) Brian May, John Deacon (standing), Roger Taylor and Freddie Mercury of British rock group Queen at Les Ambassadeurs where they were presented with silver, gold and platinum discs for sales in excess of one million of their hit single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which was No 1 for 9 weeks on September 8,1976 in London, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)
Bohemian Rhapsody rocked the Friday box office on its first day of release, but its success doesn’t stop there. The long-awaited Queen biopic has given its titular track a huge YouTube boost, and the “Bohemian Rhapsody” music video has reentered the streaming service’s U. S. Top Chart songs at No. 82 .
“Bohemian Rhapsody” has averaged more than 1 million daily YouTube views over the past week, earning a record 1.46 million views on one day. The multi-part, operatic rock epic has amassed 673 million views, making it the most-watched YouTube music video from the 1970s.
Queen currently sits at No. 71 on YouTube’s Global Top Artists chart, a 21.3% increase over the previous week, when the group landed at No. 100. The band has accumulated more than 1.3 billion YouTube views over the past month, and Queen’s official YouTube channel now boasts more than 5.6 million subscribers—250,000 of which came from October alone.
Even before earning a boost from its lukewarmly received biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody” remained a staple of popular culture. The song peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976 and rose to No. 2 in 1992 after making an iconic appearance in the Mike Myers comedy Wayne’s World. Rolling Stone ‘s Mark Sutherland credited the song as ” practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air.”
As Bohemian Rhapsody waits to be crowned king of the weekend box office, Queen’s magnum opus of the same name remains firmly lodged in the hearts—and YouTube search histories—of listeners.
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